The number of students who don’t have homes has risen dramatically since the recession. The global financial crisis critically affected a great many families in the United States and has resulted in a 70% increase in the amount of homeless youth, according to data released by the Department of Education (DOE). The amount of students that are actually homeless is quite alarming and startling.

The data from the DOE indicates that overall 1,168,354 students from preschool to the 12th grade are homeless. These numbers give credence to other data from a census showing that nearly a quarter of children under the age of 18 in the U.S. lived in poverty in 2012 due to the recession. This is quite alarming for many advocates. Cara Balardi, the senior policy director of the child policy group First Focus, stated that “it’s a sign that despite what we read in the news about the economy getting better and the recession being over, it’s clear that children and families are still suffering the effects.”

While the number of homeless students in the U.S. is indeed troubling and shocking, it a much larger indication of the very real issues that are occurring all over the world. There are crises happening all over that are affecting huge numbers of people. There is an economic crisis occurring in Europe as well that ties into the world economy. There is even more troubling news about the state of homeless youths in the United States. Experts fear that because of the lack of complete data on other student demographics, the number of homeless youth could actually be much higher.

The homeless student demographic in the U.S. is merely a figment of the much larger issue of homelessness. According to a study done by the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Homelessness Research Institute, there were over 636,017 homeless people living in the United States in 2011–67,495 of those were veterans. The National Coalition of the Homeless estimates that 16% of the homeless population in the U.S. in 2011 had a sever or persistent from of some mental illness as well. The homelessness crisis is something that must be more efficiently addressed by the United States.